Thursday Kelly came home with a small little gift for Clara. It was a Giant Microbe that he got at the school bookstore. This is saccharomyces cerevisiae. It's Latin name means "sugar fungus of the beer." It contains special enzymes that turn sugar molecules into carbon dioxide and alcohol. One yeast can turn into 1,000,000 in only six hours. The toy is 1,000,000 times yeasts actual size. Clara loves it and I think it is so clever. Kelly is so nice!
I went walking around our complex this morning. Taking photos while being paranoid about where Clara was going and what she is picking up is not ideal. But it should be understandable when you see that I was by the pool in some cases. Rest assure I was vigilant and I did have a good time.
It has been fun taking photos of Clara in her new pajamas. Maybe a little too much fun. In the morning Kelly normally gets up with her and feeds her breakfast. When they are done with that he brings her into our room and has her pounce on me to wake me up. I jump every time. She used to play for an hour or longer in her room alone but now won't have it. She still can't get enough of books and I hope she will never loose that. She is nice to be around and hug even though the last photo (I call it "No love") doesn't show it.
Today Kelly and Allen participated in the Pomona Parade that was held in the LA County Fair. It was the first day of the fair so there were a lot of people. It was so fun to see them all in there coats and how the crowd reacted to them. Some would yell out "free health care" or "would you look at my shoulder?" We had a really good time.
I didn't think it would be framed this fast but I want to show the complete project. A little redundant I know.
My sister in law Lisa has a sampler that I just loved when I saw it. She made the format so I just borrowed it from her and started it in April. Post is here. I just loved her design so I wanted to do it. I found different colors and a wanted a different quote but most everything is the same. I am really happy with it! I think I will frame it a put it on the wall.
For my birthday we drove over to Las Vegas for the Labor Day week end. Saturday we went to the Bellagio. The Fountain played Tis a Gift to be Simple. HA, ya right but they sure are fun to watch! I love the Chihuly glass. Later that night waiting for Mom and Dad to come we played intense Tetris. Ben is so good. On Sunday Jill made me a scrupulous dinner then the Guthries and Gram came over to have Score Cake. So good! Monday we were a surprise to Aunt Mar because when she came home from Salt Lake we were there swimming. ;) The drive back was a trial. The traffic was so bad. 5 hr instead of 3. Yuck! We where going so slow I could just roll down the window and take photos. I love the photo of Seth and Ben doing the Hokey Poky! That is what it's all a BOUT!
When I started taking photos of her in the bathtub she was really boring. After a while she realized what I was doing and came alive. She made a lot of funny poses and really got going when she found the wash rag. She was whipping it around and splashing it in the water all crazy like.
I have been thinking a lot about the trip I took to Italy when I was a senior. Today I looked through my album that Mom and Dad made me and the black at white photos that I took. I enjoy thinking back on all the times Lauren and I stayed up late talking about how we wanted to go there and Dad showing his slides. It has been nice to think about the funny things that happened on that trip too. Like how in Pisa James kicked a panhandlers cup over and the money went all over and guy got all mad. At church Lauren saw people she knew from school. And how Dad and Maurizio were a Gospel spreading machine handing out pass along cards and talking to everyone. I think it is amazing how traveling can change your perspective and help you understand things you thought you knew but didn't really. It's like seeing the Grand Canyon and finally understanding how grand it really is.
We tried to take this trip the day of the earthquake (the 29th of July) but I basically got lost, traffic was really bad, and there was a motorcycle accident directly in front of us so we tried again on Monday. We had a good time walking around Grauman's Chinese Theatre, lunch at the Farmers Market and visiting the LA temple afterwords. At the theatre I thought It was interesting that my feet were tiny compared to Will Smith's, a little bigger the Gene Kelly's, and huge compared to Shirley Temple's. Fun to know that Will's is the 2nd most recent print and that Charlie Chaplin slab was removed from in front of the theatre in the 1950s, when accusations of communism turned the public opinion against him, and was moved to a family member's home in Eagle Rock and buried in the back yard. It is still there today. Crazy!
I was anxious to get out of the apartment and Kelly didn't want to spend money so we went to a nearby park and ate our tuna sandwiches. Then we went swimming in our complex pool. Clara is really starting to love the water. The first photo is an imitation of an other photographer's project called Crawl. I thought is was a cool project and plus her name is Sally. Check it out here.
